All the Stars in Texas
by lyrisca
Summary: An encounter with a wayward criminal turns Sheldon's life upside-down. Delightfully AU.
1. Chapter 1

_And all these people understand_

_Is a gun in their face or the cash in their hand_

_I wanna take you home and start a family_

_But all the stars in Texas ain't got nothin' on your eyes when you say, "Let's hit 'em one more time" _

- Ludo, _All the Stars in Texas_

* * *

"I can't stay here."

My mother throws me a stern look, and I fidget in my stiff black suit. She doesn't understand; for her, this is closure. This collective form of mourning is her way of accepting the reality of the situation and moving on. I am not my mother, however, and for me this situation is unbearable. I don't need a elegiac southern Baptist funeral to make me accept the fact that my grandmother — my Meemaw — is dead. Her chemically altered body in the casket five feet away is more than enough proof for me.

"I can't stay here," I repeat. "I have to leave."

"Sheldon Lee Cooper," my mother warns in a harsh whisper, "don't you dare. You still need to speak—"

I ignore her and rise to my feet. She latches a hand to the hem of my suit jacket, but I pull out of her grasp and walk away from the people, from the embalmed corpse that once housed my grandmother. Don't they know that modern embalming only preserves a body for a couple of days, or that sealing the coffin creates a far more gruesome fate for the forgotten pile of flesh and bones? What a ridiculous and ultimately futile process. Dead is dead, at least for the time being.

I walk until my feet begin to ache and I am on the other side of town. Although I left with no particular destination in mind, I find myself standing in front of Maggie's, my Meemaw's favorite diner. The food is sub-par and the service even worse, but I push the door open anyway. Normally the odor of stale cigarettes mingling with the heavy, greasy smell of burgers and fries would repulse me, but on this day, I find the olfactory sensation oddly comforting.

"What'll ya have?" bleats the heavyset waitress behind the counter when I take my seat.

"Just coffee, please," I say, breaking my own cardinal rule. Chemical stimulants generally do not interest me, but right now, I need something to combat the nauseated feeling in my gut. I add sugar until the waitress begins to look worried and then stir quickly with a spoon. The coffee cup looks curiously smudged along the outer rim, and I have to resist the urge to ask for a new mug.

I glance around me and take in the surroundings. The walls are yellowed with decades of cooking residue and the counters look outdated and sloppily cleaned, but somehow the place has a strange sort of charm. Perhaps I am simply nostalgic for the hours spent here as a child, enjoying food my mother never would have paid for with the one person who did not think I was an abnormality in the negative sense of the word. My grandmother accepted my differences and encouraged them with fervor; she bought me textbooks for Christmas and designed rockets with me, stayed up late with me to learn about the night sky and helped me build my first telescope. Unfortunately, She is now dead, gone forever, and I missed my chance to say goodbye.

Suddenly, for the first time since my childhood, I feel tears stinging my eyes. Her absence from my life is a gaping emotional wound for which I was unprepared. Until this moment, true sadness was a foreign concept to me, but now I can feel it coursing through my veins and breaking down walls. I blink rapidly and try to dismiss the feelings with a sip of rancid coffee.

"Rough day?" Asks a voice. I look over and see a blond woman staring at me from a few stools away.

I clear my throat. "No."

"You're a terrible liar." She scoots down to sit next to me and smiles a perfect smile, full of teeth and promises. "Come on, you can tell me."

"I don't even know you," I mumble, looking down. Her legs are long and tanned and bumping against mine; I flinch reflexively and move away.

"Maybe you're supposed to know me," she says simply. I look up at her again and she's still smiling that same bright smile. She runs a hand through her hair and I begin to wonder why she's bothering; she isn't the type of woman who usually bothers with me. In fact, most women don't bother with me, probably due to the fact that I have no interest in bothering with them.

"If you must know, my grandmother died recently, and her funeral was today," I find myself saying in an effort to shut her up. "Now, will you leave me alone?"

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that," she says, and it sounds earnest. "But I'm not done with you. You and I have grand plans for this day."

"I don't know what you mean." Is this woman crazy? She doesn't look crazy; in fact, she looks exceedingly attractive and like she should be in an empty-minded fashion magazine instead of sitting next to me in this hellhole diner.

She leans close and her eyes light up. "I mean that instead of being my victim today, you get to be my accomplice."

"What? Accomplice? I don't—" She puts a finger to my lips to silence me and presses something heavy against my thigh. I look down and nearly fall off of the stool in a panic; she's placed a handgun in my lap.

She pulls another gun out from nowhere and spins around. "All right, boys and girls, down on the floor! Nice and easy!" She brandishes her weapon and points it around the diner at various targets. "Don't make this hard for us. Any sudden movements and we'll blow your fuckin' heads off!"

The entire diner goes still. Children are wailing and people are talking in hushed whispers. They don't seem to know whether or not they should take the threat seriously.

The woman aims upward and takes out a fluorescent light, causing everyone in the diner to flinch. "What the hell are you waiting for?" she yells. It seems to do the trick; people fall to the floor almost instantly. She turns her angry gaze on me. "Come on, get up. You're gonna keep an eye on the folks up here while I go around and collect the dough."

I remember the gun in my lap with a start. "What?" I ask, completely paralyzed and dumb with fear. I can almost feel it radiating from my amygdala and coursing through my heightened limbic system.

"Take the damn gun and point it at those people," she whispers harshly, gesturing toward the group of waitresses and cooks on the floor. "Do it, or your day's gonna get much worse!"

Shakily, I curl my fingers around the cool metal and aim it at the group of folks nearest to me. I recognize some of them as people with whom I attended grade school, people who taunted me as a child and never looked at me with anything but derision. Do they recognize me? Am I confirming their suspicions that I would someday crack?

I glance out of the corner of my eye at the woman, who is busy robbing customers. She works quickly and without fuss; she has done this before. I should never have opened my fool mouth!

I consider wounding her. I'm a decent shot and I could detain her until the authorities arrive; it seems painless and simple. But I quickly find myself rejecting the idea. If she is as good with her weapon as I suspect, she would probably manage to fire a round in me from the floor, and I have no interest in taking any injuries. Personal preservation always trumps moral duty.

Thankfully, no one complicates the situation by trying to be a hero; the people in this town are too complacent and unaccustomed to wrongdoing to do anything but meekly hand over their cash and cower on the floor. After the woman finishes taking money from everyone and empties the cash register, she grabs my arm roughly and begins backing toward the door.

"Thanks," she says with a smile and a wink. Then she backpedals out of the restaurant and begins walking quickly across the gravel parking lot. She hasn't let go of my arm.

"Why the hell did you involve me in this?" I ask angrily. Ignoring me, she leads me to a car and opens the passenger side door. A gun pressed to my side is encouragement enough for me to get in.

"The proprietors will most certainly take down your license plate number," I say when she slides in next to me and starts the car. "Do you really think you can get away with this?"

"I've gotten away with this many, many times, so I'd say yes." She peels out of the parking lot and stops behind an abandoned building. "And as for the license plates, I'm about to replace them. I always put on my old plates when I rob places."

I have to give her credit for being thorough. She has the plates replaced and hidden in under five minutes, and I find myself wondering how many times she's done this, and even why. I don't generally care for the why in regards to other people, but I've also never been involuntarily hired by a criminal. There are certain things I feel I must know.

"What if I turn you in?" I ask when she climbs back into the car.

"Feel free," she says with a flourish of her hand. "I'll be out of town in an hour and my hair color will be different by tomorrow morning. I only rob diners and the occasional gas station in tiny nobody towns; I have no pattern, and I never steal enough from one place to be considered a real threat. The cops lose interest after a few days and I keep my freedom. It's the perfect crime and there's no way that you can screw it up."

"Oh, madam, I think you underestimate me," I say. She thinks she's smarter than me; no one is smarter than me. In a sudden moment of courage, I cock the gun I'm still holding and point it across the car. "You should have disarmed me when we left the diner. I'm perfectly capable of—"

Within three seconds, she's karate-chopped my carotid artery and reclaimed her gun. I cough and sputter and glare at her.

"I hope I made your day a bit more exciting, sweetheart," she says, sugary sweet. "Now, where would you like me to take you?"

"The police station?"

She rolls her eyes. "Cute. No, I mean, your place."

I tell her the street but not the house, and she takes off. I shift uncomfortably and try not to look at her. "So, what drives a woman such as yourself to commit felonies?"

"What drives a guy like you to drink coffee at a shitty redneck diner?"

"None of your business."

"I can make it my business." The threat sounds honest, but she sighs and loses some steam. "I'm in this line of work because I need the money and crime's about the only thing I've ever been any good at." I flinch at her dangling preposition but let her continue. "My mom has cancer and can't afford the medical bills. I send most of the money home."

"That's more noble than I was expecting," I say. "Assuming it's true."

"Why would I lie?" A police car, all flashing lights and raucous noises, careens toward us. The woman dutifully pulls over and the car flies past. "I have nothing to prove to you, or to anyone. I'm just getting by like everybody else."

I snort. "Yes, just like everyone else." She drives on and we sit in silence for a moment. "Don't you have any other skills, besides armed robbery?"

She pulls off on a dead-end road and I feel my stomach drop. She's staring at me with a look that is half-irritation, half-amusement. "Why do you keep asking me so many damn questions? What do you care?"

"I don't care," I say. "I'm just... curious, I suppose. Human behavior generally baffles me, but you in particular are an interesting case."

"Because I'm pretty and I rob diners for a quick buck? There's nothing interesting about that. Plenty of women have stumbled upon the discovery that good looks can get you anywhere; for me, it's just a bonus. I could do this without 'em."

"Yes, but you could be..." I consider. "You could, at the very least, be an actress? A waitress?"

"A stripper?" She raises an eyebrow. "Was that your next suggestion?"

"What? No! Of course not."

"Well, anyway, been there, done that. People that say it's empowering are full of shit. No amount of money in the world is worth that."

I carefully block any images of that particular profession from my mind. "All I am saying is that there are other, more legal, ways of gaining funds—"

"Shit!" She interrupts me and points at the rear-view mirror. A police car has pulled up a handful of feet behind us, lights ablaze.

Although I know I have no reason to be worried, a pang of fear echoes through my stomach. "The local law enforcement seems to be more proficient than you anticipated."

"Shut up!" She's thinking hard, and I can almost hear her mind racing. Abruptly, she looks over at me and grabs my shoulder. "I have an idea. If it doesn't work, then, well... at least you can tell people you got lucky. Probably for the first time," she adds with a smirk.

"What are you—" But within seconds she's leaped over into my lap and is kissing me, her hands wrapped around my neck. I feel myself freeze up out of pure shock and the realization that I am being forced to exchange bodily fluids with this strange, strange woman. She presses herself against me and I yelp in surprise; she leans back and grimaces.

"What is your deal?" she asks, exasperated. "Just go with it. Trust me."

She kisses me again and I close my eyes and try not to think about the bacteria. Her lips are soft and her skin smells like cheap lotion and expensive perfume and _why haven't I pulled away_? This plan is absolutely ridiculous, no one would ever believe that a woman like this would engage in amorous activities with someone such as myself, but her pulse has quickened and when I open my eyes, she's staring into me like she can see everything I'm thinking. A little shiver runs down my spine and for the second time today I find myself feeling something unfamiliar.

There's a tap on the window, and we both look over in surprise. The officer also looks surprised, but thankfully I do not recognize him. I hesitantly reach out and roll down the window.

"Hello, officer," the woman says sheepishly. "Uh... is there a problem?"

"I'm sorry to, uh, interrupt," the officer says, his cheeks flushing, "I thought that your car matched the physical description of one I'm looking for, but... I was wrong. Wrong license plates. So I came up to make sure everything was all right."

"Just fine," I hear myself say. "Are we in trouble?"

"No, no," he says, waving his hands. "Just... you know, find a room? I don't want to write you a ticket."

"I understand," I say. "We'll be moving along."

"Thanks." With that, he turns and leaves.

The woman claps her hands on my chest twice and then climbs off of me. "Brilliant! I knew it'd work!" Smiling, she starts the car. "And you aren't as bad of a kisser as I expected."

I can't think of anything to say to that, so I sit in silence until we reach my street. She stops the car and I go to unbuckle my seat belt. "I'll walk from here."

"Hey." She leans over and plants a kiss on my cheek. "Thanks for your... help. Hope you don't feel violated or anything. Do you, uh, want some money?"

"I prefer to earn my funds, thank you." I scramble out of the car. "I hope that you will consider an alternative career path."

"Not likely," she says with a wink. "By the way, the name's Penny."

"Sheldon."

She makes a face. "Do your parents hate you?"

"You share your name with a coin that is worth next to nothing. Do you parents hate _you_?"

She rolls her eyes. "Whatever. Have a nice life, Sheldon."

As she drives away, I feel an overwhelming sense of relief, along with something else I find myself unable to qualify.

* * *

_Yes, the plot of this fic loosely springs from the song quoted at the beginning... which, by the way, LISTEN TO IT. _

_Tell me what you think!_


	2. Chapter 2

The police question me the next morning, before my flight. Thankfully, they determine from my statement and the statements of witnesses that I am not a suspect, so I am quickly told that I am free to go back to Pasadena. I wonder briefly whether they will catch the woman (I doubt that she told me her real name and as a result I did not pass on her alias to the police) but I do not let the thought linger in my mind. Blissful normality is only a handful of hours away, and I am eager to return to it and forget the entire trip home. There are too many feelings here, too many new situations that are difficult to examine objectively or empirically.

Leonard is waiting for me when I arrive at LAX, and I am almost relieved to see him.

"So, how was... everything?" he asks carefully as we walk to the car.

"I'd rather not discuss it," I say quietly. Leonard may be my friend and he may occasionally feel the need to confide in me regarding certain aspects of his life, but I refuse to do him the same injustice.

"Understandable." We spend the majority of the trip in silence. I assume Leonard is going to take me to the university, as it is a weekday, but he takes the exit for home instead.

I give him a puzzled look. "Why are we going home? It's Monday. We have work."

"CalTech is giving you the week off, remember? You thought you may be in Texas longer than the weekend, and the university was more than happy to give you extra time."

"I remember, but I had no plans to sit idly at home," I say. "I have work to do, Leonard. Please take me to work."

Leonard glances over at me and sighs. "Sheldon, you just lost your grandmother. We all know how important she was to you. There's nothing wrong with taking a little time off to deal with it."

"But I don't want to take time off. I've already 'dealt' with it. Death is a natural process that all living organisms eventually experience, and while we may not know exactly what—"

"Listen, fine. If this is what works for you, then go for it. But I'm not taking you to work." Leonard glares at me a little from over his glasses. "You can do your stuff from home if you really need to."

I cross my arms in frustration. What is wrong with wanting to be productive? The last thing I want is time to sit at home and reflect on the events of the past few days.

"I'll see you after work," Leonard says when he deposits me at our apartment complex. "I bought you an extra box of high-fiber cereal, since you were running low. Try to have a good day."

"Thanks," I mutter as I grab my things. What on Earth am I supposed to do for the next week?

* * *

By Friday, I have completely run out of things to do. I have cleaned the entire apartment three times, re-organized my comic book collection chronologically by the days I received each of them, washed Leonard's laundry in addition to my own, spent a total of twenty hours walking to and perusing the comic book store, grouped foods in the pantry by sodium content and baked a disturbing number of non-dairy desserts. I have also been attempting to work through a number of equations that I began before leaving for Texas, but I am finding it unnervingly difficult to focus.

Despite all of my extra time, sleep is hard to come by. I awake multiple times in the night from nightmares involving robberies, funeral homes, and that woman's face dancing in my mind, taunting me. When Leonard and company pull out the Nintendo 64 for retro game night, I am thankful for the distraction from my own sleep-addled thoughts.

"Sheldon, you look like hell," Howard comments as he plugs his purple controller into the console.

"Sleep eludes me," I say, running a hand through my hair. "I blame Leonard and his refusal to take me to work."

Leonard ignores me and glances through our collection of games. "Shall we start off with a _Super Smash Brothers_ match? I'm thinking a 20 stock fight to the death, Hyrule Castle stage, bob-ombs and motion sensor bombs only?"

"Oh, I hate those stupid motion sensor bombs," Raj whines. "At least add in the Poké Balls."

"Fine, Poké Balls, bob-ombs, and motion sensor bombs. Any other objections?"

I personally prefer adding in the baseball bat, as I am the only one who has mastered the move necessary for a home run, but I am too tired to argue with Leonard. I plug in my controller and settle back against the couch. "Let's start."

A half hour later, I am in a battle to the death with Howard. Leonard and Raj (Link and Yoshi, respectively) dropped out long ago and I am left alone to deal with Samus's potent energy blasts.

"Seriously, who uses Ness, anyway?" Howard complains as I toss a bob-omb in his direction. "His control scheme is funky as hell and I hate those damn energy yo-yo things!"

"You're just upset because you can't beat me!" The adrenaline in my system is giving me a second wind. I frantically shoot myself back onto the stage after Howard's Samus tosses me off.

Raj shakes his head at Howard. "You're on your last life, dude. There's no way you're gonna win against that little bastard."

I hear a knock on the door, but I am too absorbed in the game to answer. "Could you get the door, Leonard?"

"Only if you let us play _Ocarina of Time_ next."

Damn it. "Fine, but I'm not staying up all night to help you when you get stuck in Lord Jabu-Jabu's belly."

I don't have to turn my head to know that Leonard is rolling his eyes. He gets up and answers the door just as I deliver the killing blow to Samus. "Victory!"

Miraculously, Howard's character manages to latch on to the edge of the stage. "Booyah, bitches, I'm still in this game!" he cheers.

From the half-open door, I hear an uncomfortably familiar voice. Leonard turns and gives me a very strange look. "Sheldon... a girl is at the door for you."

Howard pauses the game. "A girl? A _girl_? Sheldon, since when do you know any girls? Is it another crazy graduate student?" He waggles his eyebrows. "Is she hot?"

I snort derisively in an attempt to hide the panic that is racing through my breast. Unfortunately, I do not have much time to worry; before I can reach out to open the door, it swings toward me and the blond bandit from Texas throws herself into my arms.

"Oh, Sheldon!" She cries, tears rolling down her cheeks. I stiffen at her touch and have no idea what to do with my hands. "Things are just terrible! I'm sorry I didn't call, but you told me it was okay to come, and so I did."

"What—" I start, but I can't seem to voice the questions that are waiting on the tip of my tongue. Why are you here? How did you find me? In what horrible crime are you planning to involve me?

I turn a little and realize that my friends are staring at me. Or rather, they're staring slack-jawed at the (scantily-clad) woman that is clinging to me and shedding crocodile tears.

Leonard finally breaks the odd tension building in the room. "Sheldon, aren't you going to, uh, introduce us to your... your friend?"

The options run through my head. I could tell them the truth, but considering that they are all hot-blooded and undersexed, there is a strong possibility that they will throw me out of the apartment for even hinting that this woman has been involved in any wrongdoing. I am, of course, a terrible liar, but if I could invent a lie complex enough for them to believe...

The woman (Penny, I remember, her name is Penny) is a step ahead of me. "Sheldon and I are old friends from grade school," she explains, sniffling. "Practically related, really— when my momma died, I spent a lot of time at his place. My daddy's a mean-spirited son of a bitch and I never wanted to spend much time with him when he'd been drinking. Well, we ran into each other at his grandma's funeral— bless her good soul, she was a wonder— and Sheldon, always so sweet, told me to come on down to California if things ever got too bad. Well, they got bad quick, after he left." She bursts into tears again and I notice the bruises darkening the skin around her eyebrow and temple. I wonder how much truth is being blended in to the lies. "My daddy finally went too far. I had to get out, start over... so, here I am."

"That's terrible!" Howard exclaims with exaggerated sadness.

Leonard, however, looks a little dubious. "Sheldon? _Sweet_? Don't get me wrong, I'm sorry things have been tough for you—" he gestures toward Penny, then to me, "—But Sheldon's not really... you know..."

"Oh, I know he's not the friendliest right off the bat," Penny says, swatting at my nose. I give her a look and step back. "But we have a long history. Don't we, sweetie?"

I nod slightly, marveling at her ability to catch me in the middle of her lie. What can I do at this point, besides go along with it? She has my friends' sympathy, and Leonard seems satisfied by her explanation of our 'friendship'. I am also not completely convinced that she won't pull a gun on me if I deviate from her lie.

"Well, you're welcome to stay here for as long as you need," Leonard says, smiling. "I'm Sheldon's roommate, Leonard. What did you say your name was?"

"Penny." She reaches past me to shake Leonard's hand. "Thank you so much! Sheldon didn't tell me that he had such cute friends..."

A collective giggle echoes through the apartment. I sigh heavily and turn my attention to Penny. "May I speak to you for a moment in private?"

"Well, sure," she says, brushing against me as she walks by. "Where's your room?"

"I meant outside—" But she ignores me and saunters down the hall.

"This one must be yours," she says, peeking into my room. The innocent tone her voice had taken on earlier is gone. "You look like you go crazy if there's a single hair out of place."

I step in behind her. "Just to be clear, no one is allowed in my room under normal circumstances." I shut the door behind me and cringe when she tosses herself onto my bed. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm in big trouble," she says with a sigh. She brings a hand up to the side of her face and flinches a little when she touches the bruises. "I needed a place to lay low for a while, and I had no where else to go." She looks up at me, her eyes big. "That stuff about my dad was mostly true. He found me a day after I ran into you and beat me up pretty good... tried to drag me to the police. He says I don't send Mom enough money, when I know he intercepts a good chunk of it and blows it on drink and drugs. Asshole."

"So you thought it would be a grand idea to continue making my life miserable?"

"I told you, I had no other options." She picks at a loose string on her shorts and I think I see her hand shake for the briefest moment. "He would've killed me. And in my line of business, I don't make many friends. To be honest, you're the first person in a long time that's made me think twice about all of this crap. So I decided to come here and see if maybe there's something beyond robbing diners and pointing guns in people's faces."

I shake my head. "I can't house a criminal in my apartment, and I certainly can't back up this ridiculous lie you've told my friends. I have no intention of letting you go through with this—"

Faster than a bolt of lightning, she has a gun aimed at my head. "Then I'll make this easy for you. I'm not giving you the choice, okay? That way, if something happens and the police find me here, you can tell them I threatened you at gunpoint." I realize that tears, real tears, are meandering down her cheeks. "Please don't make this any harder for me than it already is, Sheldon. I've been through some shit in my life, especially lately, and I wouldn't be interfering with your little world if I had any other choice. I'll leave as soon as I'm able."

"Fine," I murmur, knowing I've been defeated. "But you're sleeping on the couch."

"I would expect nothing less from you, considering how surprised your friend Leonard was to find out that you've got a girlfriend."

"You are _not_ my girlfriend."

"Girl who is a friend. Whatever." She shoves her gun beneath her jacket and climbs to her feet. "Let's go hang out with your friends. You guys are pretty nerdy, huh? Video games on a Friday night?"

"How did you even find me?" I ask as she reaches behind me to open the door. "And there is nothing wrong with playing video games on a Friday night."

"All that says to me is that you and your friends are sorely lacking in the female companionship department," Penny quips. "Oh, and all I had to do was google your name. You seemed pretty smart, and not just a ton of people born recently have been blessed with your name. I clicked on the results until your picture turned up on the CalTech web site."

"Clearly, I need to have a talk with the IT department," I mutter as I follow her out of my room and wonder what in the world I've gotten myself into.


	3. Chapter 3

After listening to Leonard and the others hit futilely on Penny for an hour, I plead digestive distress and retire to my room. I make an effort to work on a research paper, but the voices down the hall continue to distract me.

"...So, friends with Sheldon for this long, huh? Was he just as obnoxious as a kid as he is now?" Howard's question.

"Obnoxious? Sheldon is never obnoxious!" Penny feigns surprise. "He's always been a great friend to me. You guys must see an entirely different side of him than I do."

Leonard chimes in. "Sheldon never even talks to girls, unless they're scientists, and then it's only to undermine their work. We just find it... hard to believe... that he's friends with somebody like you, who's so... you know..."

"Gorgeous," Howard finishes for him. "Like, drop dead gorgeous."

"Oh, you boys flatter me," Penny purrs.

I shut my laptop and cover my head with a pillow. The only benefit for myself that I can see is that there is absolutely no way that Penny will be able to fake the friendship she is claiming to have with me. Gun or no gun, she can't force me to be someone that I am not, especially not in front of three people who know my social habits far better than she does. The thought provides a small flicker of comfort and I drift off to sleep in half-smothered darkness.

I jerk awake three hours later and am greeted by relative silence. A sudden fear lances through me, and I pad quietly out of my room and into the kitchen. In the living room, Penny is munching on a pilfered bag of Cheetos (Leonard's, thankfully) and playing _Ocarina of Time_.

"Did you come out here to make sure I wasn't stealing anything?" Penny mumbles as I open the refrigerator. I express my shock to the egg carton on the second shelf; is she telepathic in addition to being a petty crook?

"No, I need a glass of milk," I say, which is mostly true.

"Well, I promise I won't steal anything other than food." She jabs the A button viciously in an attempt to shake off a Redead. "Damn these creepy, head-humping bastards!"

"I thought you didn't like video games," I comment as I pour milk into a saucepan and kick on the stove.

"I never said that. But yeah, generally I'm not into them. This one is pretty neat, though. I just won the hookshot from that dead guy in the graveyard, and now I'm gonna go get me a horse."

"Did you learn the proper song as child Link?" I ask, stirring my milk.

"I think your pervy friend did. He's the one who told me to go back to the ranch place as an adult."

"Good." I watch her haphazardly chop at enemies for a moment and consider the gigantic wrench she has thrown into my otherwise orderly life. Well, to be fair, my Meemaw's death caused the first snag; I loved her, and her death made me acknowledge the emotions connected to that love. I would not be the person I am today without her kindness or her ready encouragement. She never understood me, but understanding wasn't necessary for her acceptance of who I was. Everyone else in my life has found that inability to understand to be too nebulous, too insulting, or just simply too hard to swallow. I can never feel comfortable around my 'peers' because on some level, I can sense their discomfort regarding me. I have no idea how to make people happy; the concept simply escapes me. But I made Meemaw happy, simply by being myself, and I do not believe that I will ever stumble upon a human being with the ability to love so unconditionally.

And Penny... she is unlike anyone I have ever met. She does not speak to me as though she expects me to say something crazy, nor does she quietly put up with demands. She is small and brash and I do not know what to make of her. The only thing I know for certain is the cool clarity of her gun in my face and the controlled anger of her finger resting against the trigger.

"Your milk is boiling." Her voice pulls my focus to the pan on the stove, which is close to bubbling over. Penny has paused her game and is wandering over to examine the contents of the fridge.

"How long do you plan on being here?" I ask suddenly. She has no respect for my personal space and nearly bumps against me as she bends over to peruse the bottom shelf.

"As long as I need to be." She finds an apple and rinses it quickly under cold water before taking a sloppy bite. "I'm thinking about finding a job, but working the 9 to 5 just seems so... mundane... compared to what I'm used to doing."

"I can imagine." I pour my warm milk into a coffee mug and skitter to my spot on the couch. Penny takes a seat next to me and hands me the Nintendo controller.

"I can't play until I finish my apple," she says innocently, her mouth full of mush. I make a face and take the controller from her.

"You could try out for an acting job," I suggest as I make Link run toward Lon-Lon Ranch. For a wild moment I find myself wishing I could take up residence in Hyrule; wielding a sword and cutting down monsters seems far preferable to my current life situation.

Penny snorts. "I'm no actress. I mean, your friends bought my little sob story earlier, but they were also busy staring at my boobs."

"There's more to acting than simply feigning an emotional response. An actor or actress must be very adept at being the center of attention and asserting his or herself. Considering your current career, I would say that you are as skilled as any at making yourself heard in a room full of people."

"Yeah, well, I can't take my gun with me to auditions," Penny grumbles. "I dunno, I guess I've never thought about it. I've always liked the thrill of robbing a place, of being able to make people feel fear... it's an adrenaline rush, to have people be afraid of you. To be purposely unpredictable. Maybe I could channel that into acting."

"Perhaps." I race Ingo and win Epona easily; I have always found the difficulty level of Ocarina of Time to be terribly disappointing.

"Well, in that case, I'd better go shopping tomorrow. I don't think I own any clothes appropriate for an audition... hell, I don't even know what to _do_ at an audition. You're gonna help me out, right?"

"...What?" I blink. Clearly there is something about my suggestion to her that I did not think through.

"Well, this is your idea. You must know something about it. So, you're gonna help me get a part."

"I am a theoretical physicist with two PhDs. I have no business helping you with anything related to acting." I carefully neglect to mention the Shakespearian plays I put on for my mother as a child (with a disgruntled and unwilling Missy playing the female characters) and my quiet borderline obsession with Broadway musicals.

"Sure you do! I'm sure you'll be great." She pats me on the arm and snags the controller from my grasp; I wince as her sticky fingers race over the buttons. "By the way, what exactly _do_ you do? Are all of the numbers and symbols doodled on those dry erase boards your handiwork?"

"Well, some of it is Leonard's," I explain wearily, "But his work is highly derivative and therefore unimportant. I fear that you would not understand my current vein of research; only about a dozen people in the world do."

"Try me."

I sigh. "Are you going to take notes?"

"No." She rolls her eyes. "Just shoot. We've got all night; I'm pretty sure I have like seven temples to go through."

* * *

Two hours and a dozen utterances of "what?" later, Penny has fallen asleep halfway through the Fire Temple and I am too wary of the sticky controller to complete it for her. I jab quickly at the start button to save her game, switch off the television, and turn back toward Penny. The glint of her gun is peeking out from beneath her rumpled jacket, and briefly I consider disarming her.

"Don't even think about it," she mumbles, opening one eye to glare at me.

Definitely telepathic. "Good night, Penny," I say, handing her a blanket.

"Good night, Sheldon."

* * *

When I emerge the next morning, Penny has thankfully already vacated the apartment. A pile of her clothing lays discarded in my spot on the couch, and I fold them carefully before placing them two cushions away, washing my hands, and sitting down with my bowl of cereal.

"Did Penny leave?" Leonard asks when he wanders into the kitchen for breakfast.

"Yes." I switch on the closed captioning on the television in anticipation for the conversation to come.

"So, she's really... uh... pretty," Leonard says lamely. I make a neutral noise and try to focus on Doctor Who. "Is she, you know, single?"

"I'm guessing so." My cereal is no longer crunchy. Curses.

"Hmm." For a few blissful moments Leonard says nothing to me, and I am able to eat my soggy cereal in peace. Then, out of nowhere, he blurts a question: "Did you guys ever have a thing?"

"A thing?" I raise my eyebrows. "What is 'a thing'?"

"You know... did you guys ever..."

"Engage in coitus?" I say it mostly because Leonard's unending questions are bothersome and I know that his mouthful of coffee will end up in his cereal bowl. I am not disappointed.

"Yeah. That."

"Our relationship is and has always been purely platonic," I say, but then the lie behind it hits me and I feel myself twitching. I of course cannot, with my eidetic memory, forget the sensation of her lips pressed against mine, but more pertinent matters had pushed the memory into the back of my mind.

Thankfully, Leonard has shifted his focus to his cereal bowl and does not see my wildly squinting right eye. I stand and empty the sad contents of my bowl into the sink and try to ignore the fact that Leonard's eyes are once again on me.

"Well, she's really nice. I'm glad that you... that she... that you're friends."

I suddenly find myself hoping that Leonard does not try to seriously pursue Penny; I am very much aware of the fact that his attempts to woo women always fail miserably. His failure would be even more pronounced with a woman like Penny. However, because his romantic endeavors do not affect me personally, and because I am sure that the armed criminal squatting in my apartment is more than capable of taking care of herself, I say nothing.

"Well, I'm heading to the shower," Leonard announces once he finishes his breakfast. I let out another neutral grunt and then sigh heavily in relief when I am alone. Well, almost alone; Penny's clothing on the other side of the couch stands out in my peripheral vision like a giant stain marring the warm brown of the cushion.

I close my eyes and hope fiercely that this is all a dream, that she won't return to haunt me like some recalcitrant apparition.

* * *

_Hi guys. Just so you know, I have no idea where this is going. Maybe a new take on the oft-used 'Penny needs acting help' prompt? Or will a part of Penny always be attracted to a life of crime? Did something besides her tiff with Daddy Dearest drive Penny to California? Will Sheldon get to sit down and have a proper Saturday morning breakfast in any of my fics, ever? Who the hell knows! I just kind of let the creative juices flow. _

_Hope you like! _


	4. Chapter 4

Much to my displeasure, Penny returns three hours later with several large shopping bags in hand.

"Oh, hi there," Leonard says, looking up from his laptop with a too-bright smile on his face. I resist the urge to scowl at him.

"Howdy!" Penny drops her bags unceremoniously on the floor next to the couch, which makes me cringe. "I bought you guys something... you know, for letting me stay here and all."

"Gifts are largely unnecessary and ultimately a pain," I say with a grimace. "Thankfully you are offering them in reciprocity, so myself and Leonard are not required to provide you with a similar gift, but in the future, please refrain from—"

"What Sheldon really means to say," Leonard interjects, "Is, 'thanks, but you really didn't have to do that'."

I shoot a glare in his general direction. "That is not at all what I meant to say!"

"Look, whatever, it won't happen again. Here's one for you," Penny hands a gift to Leonard, "And one for you." A small box drops into my lap. Opening the box reveals an object molded out of metal wires and attached to a magnet.

"I hope you like it," Penny says to me, beaming.

"This is the molecular compound for the white crystalline xanthine alkaloid known as caffeine," I say, staring down at it. "I don't consume caffeine."

"But you were drinking coffee last week," Penny points out.

"You were drinking coffee?" Leonard is nonplussed.

"Extenuating circumstances." I shift uncomfortably and gesture toward Leonard. "Your turn. Open it."

He slowly pulls the lid from the top of the box. "Oh! Dopamine!" The grin on Leonard's face grows wider. "This is pretty cool. Thanks, Penny."

"No problem." She grabs mine out of my hands and goes to place it on the refrigerator. "The guy at the science shop recommended them. He said dopamine is a chemical in the brain responsible for nice feelings and happiness..."

"Yup." Leonard puts his magnet next to mine. "My mom's a neuroscientist; I know way more about neurochemistry than any normal person should."

"That must have been pretty intimidating, growing up with a super-smart mom."

"You have no idea," Leonard mutters with a bitter chuckle.

"Leonard's mother is incredibly accomplished for a neuroscientist; her work puts Leonard's to shame," I quip. I am rewarded by the rapid disappearance of Leonard's smile.

"Since you guys have been friends for a while, you must know Sheldon's mom pretty well. What do you think of her?" Leonard asks Penny. My ears perk up; considering Penny has never actually met my mother, I'm curious as to how she will respond.

"Oh, she's always been wonderful to me," Penny says, her voice saccharine. "Always patient and kind. When my own mother passed, she basically adopted me as her own."

Damn. If only my mother was more like Leonard's!

"Are you and Missy close?" Leonard asks. I chuckle under my breath; let's see her work through this one.

"Ohhhh," Penny pulls the sound out longer than she should. "Well, I think maybe you should ask Sheldon about that."

Leonard looks at me, and immediately I am trapped. I feel a twitch pulling at the muscles in my cheek. Behind Leonard, Penny is shooting daggers at me, and I think of the loaded weapon that is most certainly concealed beneath her jacket. Suddenly it becomes very easy to lie.

"They picked on me endlessly as a child," I mumble. "But defended me when the other children tried to do the same. Penny once punched two teeth out of the mouth of the neighborhood bully when he called me some unmentionable name."

"Sheldon did a lot of crying as a kid," Penny says.

"I never cried once," I retort truthfully, unable to let that particular lie slide. I was three years old the last time I shed any tears; my drunk father locked me in my room for two days while my mother was visiting her sister in Kentucky. I vowed after that time to never cry again.

Penny dismisses me with a wave of her hand and begins pulling items from her shopping bags. Leonard checks his watch and makes a surprised noise.

"Oh, I'm late! Howard, Raj and I are going to see a matinee showing of... well..."

"Harry Potter," I finish for him.

"...Yeah," he says. "Penny, do you wanna come with? I can cover your ticket if you're—"

"Thanks, sweetie, but I think I'll stay in," Penny says with a smile. Leonard looks visibly disappointed. "Aren't you going, Sheldon?"

"He can't; we're not seeing the movie in a Sheldon-approved theater," Leonard explains before I have the chance. Penny gives him a confused look but he is already opening the door. "See you guys later!"

"Sheldon-approved theater?" Penny asks once the door swings shut. "Just how crazy are you?"

"Just how many of those items did you steal?"

"Only a couple of them. Just for you, I used up the rest of my money to pay for most of it." After digging for a moment, she pulls out a collection of books and sets them in front of me.

"What are these?" I raise an eyebrow.

"Like I told you last night, you're gonna help me out with my acting. I bought a bunch of play and musical scripts at the mall."

"Don't be ridiculous. I have far better things to do with my time than read through plays with you."

"Like what? Finish up that pile of comic books on the coffee table?" She gestures and I try to look indignant, but clearly she does not consider comic book reading an important use of my time.

"...All right, fine. But only on the condition that you take me to the bank first."

"Sure."

"And also to the comic book store." I cross my arms.

"Ok."

"...And the supermarket—"

"Look, we can go anywhere! Just, here, pick a play or a musical and we'll go through it later. We'll just have to share the scripts."

I give her an impatient look. "I have an eidetic memory. Everything I read, I memorize. I do no need to share them with you."

She at least looks impressed. "Great! I'm gonna hop in the shower, and then we can go." As she passes behind the couch, she leans down and unexpectedly plants her lips on my cheek. "Thanks, you're the best!"

"I'm only compliant because I know you carry a loaded firearm at all times," I grumble, rubbing vigorously at my cheek with my hand.

* * *

"We're here." Penny puts the car in park (not the same car she was driving a week before; the realization leaves an unsettled feeling in the pit of my stomach) and I slowly unclench my fists from he dashboard.

"I'm impressed that we made it alive," I say through gritted teeth. "I suppose I was too distracted by your weaponry last time to take note of your abhorrent driving skills."

"I am a great driver, thank you very much!" Penny looks offended. "I was driving my daddy's pick-up by the age of seven."

"Yes, well, considering your criminal record, you may want to think about driving more slowly in the future, if you'd like to avoid unnecessary run-ins with the local law enforcement."

"I'll take it into consideration," Penny replies flippantly as she unbuckles her seat belt. When we both climb out of the car and she crosses over to my side, a thought comes to me.

"You're not going to try to rob this bank, are you?" I ask.

"What? No! Come on, I told you that I only rob teeny tiny places, like diners and gas stations. Banks may have a bigger payoff, but they also present a greater risk of being caught." She pats my arm. "So, don't you worry. Why are we here, anyway?"

"Those responsible for my earnings at CalTech become irate if I do not cash or deposit my checks in a timely manner. I prefer keeping them in my drawer and cashing them when needed, but once, a large expenditure came up and every single check bounced. Apparently checks have time limits."

"Guess you learned that one the hard way, huh?"

"Indeed." She follows me into the bank and watches as I fill out my deposit slip. "That's less money than I would have expected a theoretical physicist to make, to be honest."

"Unfortunately, science rarely pays well." I sign the back of my checks and make my way to the queue. "Thankfully, I do not live extravagantly and thus do not require a larger salary."

"I used to live extravagantly... back before Mom got sick. Before yesterday, it'd been three years since I bought a new pair of shoes. Now I don't even know if there's much of a point in sending money... I'm pretty sure Dad just drinks it all away."

"When was the last time you went home?" I ask. I'm not really interested, but the line is long and I don't anticipate Penny waiting in silence.

"It's been over a year. I managed to swing by when Dad wasn't home, and I tried to convince Mom to leave with me, you know, to get away from him. But she refused, and begged me to leave before he came back. Hardest thing I ever did."

I think of my own alcoholic father and the trials and tribulations of my youth. I think of how happy I was to see him dead in a coffin, and how guilty I felt when I caught my mother crying. I may share DNA with the man, but I never owed him anything; he never gave me a reason to respect him. Even so, my mother loved him, and I don't know that she could ever forgive me if she knew how I felt the day he died.

"Were you and your grandmother close?" Penny asks. Her question seems sudden, but then I realize that I haven't spoken in a handful of minutes.

"Yes." But I don't want to talk about her with you, I add silently, hoping that she'll take the hint. Thankfully, she says nothing more.

I finally reach the counter. While I am waiting for my receipt, Penny pulls on my sleeve and whispers to me. "Hey, hey, look over there. At that guy. The twitchy one with the crazy hair. He's got something under his coat."

"What?" I murmur, following Penny's pointed finger. He is indeed twitchy, and he keeps reaching into his jacket and then quickly withdrawing his hand. "His behavior is rather odd."

Penny gives me a serious look. "We need to get out of here, now."

I nod and turn, heading for the exit. I have my hand on the door when I hear an angry male voice, startlingly close.

"Everybody on the floor! That includes you two!" I hear a gun click behind me. "Don't even think about leaving." I slowly lower myself to the ground and wait until the gunman turns away from me to look up. It is, of course, the twitchy man Penny pointed out to me only moments before.

"Balls," I hear Penny mutter to the marble floor.

* * *

_This story is moving ahead very slowly... I apologize for the long wait between chapters! It would appear that Penny is getting a taste of her own medicine, and that poor Sheldon is along for the ride. How will they make it out of this one, I wonder?_

_A final note: I know that having an eidetic memory does not mean that one memorizes everything they read... it's probably more that Sheldon picks a play/musical that he's done before, and so he's memorized it that way. But Penny doesn't know that, so. ;)  
_


	5. Chapter 5

The gunman signals through one of the windows of the bank and three masked men enter through the door. The last man locks the doors behind him and then moves to stand uncomfortably close to me.

I turn my head slowly to the side to look at Penny. She has an eager, tense look on her face, and with a jolt of panic I realize she is considering diffusing the situation herself. I may have no experience with armed robbery, but it is clear to me that she is outnumbered and has no real chance of doing anything besides getting herself shot; even in the best case scenario, if she brandishes her firearm at any time and we make it out of this alive, she will most certainly have to answer to the police afterward, who will be very interested in why she carried an unregistered firearm into a bank in southern California.

I catch Penny's gaze and hold it while shaking my head ever-so-slightly. She knits her eyebrows together in frustration, but I see her shoulders relax after a moment of thought. She seems to understand that the situation is too dire to play heroine, at least for the moment.

"Everybody empty your pockets!" The disheveled gunman gestures to one of his goons to begin gathering personal items. The man standing next to me walks away and I use the moment to scoot closer to Penny.

"Give them your gun," I whisper so quietly that I'm afraid she doesn't hear me.

She gives me a look that very clearly says, _like Hell I will_.

"Just—" but I am interrupted by one of the masked men approaching us.

"Kinda talkative over here, huh?" He reaches down and sticks a hand in Penny's hair. "What's your name, beautiful?"

I barely have time to blink before Penny has her gun pointed upward, toward his groin. The man's eyes widen in surprise behind the mask, and I realize quickly that from our angle, no one but the three of us can see what is going on.

The moment remains frozen for a handful of seconds. I am terrified that the man will speak, or that Penny will do something even more rash, but thankfully the silence is interrupted by the disheveled gunman across the room.

"Why don't you take those two with you to the vault, to help you gather the goods?" he calls to his compromised accomplice. The man gives Penny a worried glance, and she raises her eyebrows in response.

"Yeah, okay," the masked man calls over his shoulder. I slowly rise to my feet, careful to keep my hands in plain sight. Penny shoves her gun into her waistband as she rises but keeps a hand casually near her jacket. The man flicks his gaze nervously toward her but begins walking.

The instant the three of us are alone, the man begins mumbling apologies. "Listen, I don't know if you're a cop or whatever, but we just— this is my first job, you know, and I'm pretty nervous— I don't wanna get hurt."

"Shut up!" Penny jabs her gun violently into his side and he yelps. "Just take us to the vault."

We reach the vault door and the masked man eyes it. "I'm not actually sure that I can get in here," he says sheepishly.

"Whatever, that's not important," Penny says. "I don't really care what you guys are up to, all right? I just want to get out of here. So here's what's gonna happen." She grabs my arm and begins backpedaling. "You're going to stay here. We're going to leave. Then everybody's happy and you guys can rob to your heart's content. Okay?"

"Seriously, lady?" The man says, uncertain. I turn and see that an emergency exit is down the next hallway. I walk faster.

Without warning, the twitchy gunman rounds the corner. He takes in Penny's gun and gives his partner a look. "What the hell is going on?"

"Run!" Penny yells, and I bolt. My legs are long and trained from years of evading the attacks of bullies in my youth, and so I quickly reach the exit; Penny, however, is not so lucky. I hear the telltale pang of a gunshot, a pained cry, and the sound of something metal skittering across the floor.

My heart is beating furiously in my chest and my survival instincts are telling me to throw open the door and flee. I consider it for a fraction of a second; I consider abandoning this woman who has brought me nothing but trouble. It would be so easy, justifiable even. But when I glance back and see the spray of blood, Penny clutching her arm and gazing at me with a pleading, vulnerable look, I find myself ignoring the fear in my gut and bending down to help her up.

"My gun!" She snarls when the gunman picks up her weapon. Wild-eyed, he clicks off the safety and takes aim. My heart suddenly jumps into my throat.

"Please, don't—" But I don't even have time to beg. I note the trajectory of the bullet in the precious moment I have before it hits me. I hear Penny scream and I register my body hitting the floor, quietly and softly. The world fades and shimmers and I can hear nothing but the distant whine of sirens and the hammering of my own heart.

* * *

When consciousness returns to me, I find that I am too tired to open my eyes. My head hurts magnificently and my thoughts are muddled and sluggish; I wonder for a moment if I am still alive, but then I dismiss the thought with the mental equivalent of rolling my eyes. What nonsense. Of course I'm alive!

I drift off to a dreamless sleep and awake later with less pain, but more difficulty forming coherent thoughts. No doubt a side effect of the medication. Around me, I hear the beeping of hospital equipment and the even breathing of another. I decide to risk opening my eyes.

Pain lances through my skull, but I look around nonetheless. The hospital room is empty, sans a sleeping figure with her head pressed into the side of my bed. A tumble of blond hair rests against my stomach.

"Penny," I murmur quietly, my voice hoarse with lack of use. She stirs, winces when her right arm shifts. She is sporting a rather formidable cast and has her arm in a sling.

"Sheldon?" She blinks blearily and then registers my wakefulness. "Sheldon! Thank God!" She leans forward and rests her head against my chest in an awkward hug. I groan involuntarily as my head shifts slightly.

Once Penny pulls away, I run a hand across my chin and feel the faint beginnings of a five o' clock shadow. "What time is it? I am guessing that I have not been asleep for longer than a day."

"It's about four in the morning. You've been in and out of consciousness since the early evening."

Instantly, the events of the day come rushing back with painful intensity; the robbery, the adrenaline, the gunshot. I tentatively touch a hand to my forehead, and find it covered with gauze.

"The bullet glanced off your skull," Penny explained. "You're basically the luckiest person in the world. You have a concussion, but no permanent brain damage, according to the doctor." She swallows hard and grabs my hand. "I thought for sure that you were a goner when you went down. There was so much blood. Those asshole robbers took off when they heard the police sirens — I guess one of the bank employees tripped an alarm or something when they came in. Amateurs. The police haven't caught them, and if they're smart they're already two states away."

"Your gun..." I clearly remember staring down the barrel of that awful weapon. "Did they take your gun?"

"Yeah." Penny laughs bitterly. "I'm still pretty pissed about it. But on the plus side, me not having a weapon means the police have no reason to suspect me for anything. They questioned me and I came out squeaky clean. Apparently the robbers managed to disable the video cameras at some point, 'cause there's no footage to dispute my eye-witness account. Speaking of, we should probably get our stories straight, for when they question you."

"I am assuming you simply left out any mention of your gun."

"Right. I also told them that the main gunman probably just panicked when he saw us bolt for the exit, and that made him shoot at us. Bastard fractured my arm pretty good."

"I see that." I rest my forehead gently in my hands. "Penny, I'm a terrible liar. I can give you no guarantees that I won't botch the story when the police question me."

"You'll be fine." She looks down, doesn't meet my gaze. "I am so sorry, for everything. I've done nothing but screw with your life since you met me a week ago. To be honest, I was expecting you to just keep running when I went down."

"I considered it," I say honestly, and I see a hurt look flicker across her eyes. "But I am not one to abandon a damsel in distress. You're just lucky the bullet did not pierce my skull and wreak havoc. You'd be answering to CalTech for disabling one of the brightest minds of the twenty-first century."

Penny rolls her eyes, but when I feel her hand squeeze mine I realize that she really was genuinely worried for me. A strange occurrence, considering she has known me for barely a week. What reason does she have to care for my well-being? In defying my instincts and putting myself in danger for her sake, was I acting on something besides the expectations of a hero that have been drilled into me since my youth?

"Give me a chance to make it up to you," Penny says, and I find myself nodding in spite of myself. Perhaps I am just too tired and concussed to argue.

* * *

Much to my relief, the police questioning (my second this week!) goes well. Penny's lie is close enough to the truth that I am able to convince myself that I am simply withholding information instead of lying.

"I suppose I am a criminal now," I mutter to Penny after the officers leave.

"Welcome to my world," she says with a wicked grin.

Leonard, Howard and Raj arrive shortly thereafter with a collection of balloons and flowers. "The balloons are from us; we knew better than to get you flowers. You can blame Dr. Gablehauser for that," Leonard explains.

"And this is for you, my lady," Howard says, handing Penny a large purple teddy bear. She gives him a very brief hug in return.

"We called your mom—"

"Why would you call my mother?" I try to avoid yelling; the doctor told me not to overexert myself.

"Because you were shot in a bank robbery! Come on, Sheldon, I had to call her. Anyway, she's coming up; she'll be here tomorrow."

Penny's eyebrows shoot up at the news.

"Where is my phone?" I ask, glancing around me. "I need to call her and tell her not to come. There's no reason."

"She already booked the flight," Leonard says. "And do you really think you could convince her not to come? This is _your mother_ we're talking about."

I sigh. "I suppose you're right." Penny shoots a panicked glance in my direction, but there's nothing either of us can say or do at the moment.

* * *

My doctor allows me to check out that afternoon. Everyone, myself included, protests when Penny offers to drive me home, but she dismisses our objections with a wave of her hand.

"My arm hurts like hell, which means my pain meds have worn off. I don't need both arms to drive. Seriously, it'll be fine."

I only acquiesce because I know she is itching to discuss my mother's arrival. In fact, she explodes with conversation the moment we are alone in the car.

"What are we gonna do? I told them that I knew your mom; I do _not_ know your mom!" Penny cries.

"This is certainly a problem. It would appear that we either need to include my mother in our lie, or we need to tell my friends the truth."

"What's the easier option?"

I give her a look. "For one, you instigated me in a crime in my home town. For two, we have told my friends an elaborate lie regarding how we know each other. My mother is a good Christian woman; I think it is likely that she would encourage her God to smite both of us on the spot for our respective sins. It would be far easier and less risky to explain the situation to Howard, Leonard and Raj and form a new lie to tell my mother."

"How do you think they'll respond?"

"I suppose we'll find out," I say with a sigh.

At the apartment complex, Penny loops an arm around my waist to help me up the steps. My head is still swimming and each step sends a pulse of pain through my skull. When we finally reach my apartment, I slip my key into the door and glance over.

"Ready?"

Penny nods. "Ready." We walk in and Penny closes the door behind us.

"Took you long enough," Leonard says, not looking up from his laptop. Raj and Howard are engrossed in an old episode of Star Trek: The Original Series and do not acknowledge us.

"We have something we need to tell you," Penny begins.


	6. Chapter 6

Leonard looks up. "Something else? You guys have already been involved in an armed robbery today; what else could you possibly have to share?"

"Well, it's somewhat related to that..." I clear my throat. "Penny and I have lied to you, and with the impending arrival of my mother, it is necessary for us to tell you the truth."

"I've never actually met Sheldon's mom," Penny says.

"And we're not childhood friends," I continue. "In fact, we only met one another last week, in Texas."

Howard finally tears his eyes from the television. "Well, THAT doesn't surprise me; I thought that Sheldon having friends as a kid was a little fishy."

"Wait, you just met each other?" Leonard asks. "Then why are you here, Penny? And why did you feel the need to lie?"

"Well... I've been involved in some questionable activities lately, and I didn't want any of you to think less of me."

"Oh, come on, we're not going to judge you!" Leonard pats the couch cushion next to him (my cushion, I note unhappily) and Penny sits down. "Just tell us what's going on."

"Like I said, I've never met Sheldon's mom," Penny says again. "But I was close with Sheldon's grandmother, near the end. We met one day at her favorite diner in Galveston; I was having a tough day and she offered to buy my lunch."

What is she doing? "I thought we were going to be truthful," I say carefully, glaring at her.

She sighs emphatically. "Ok, you're right, you're right. I am... I was—"

But before she can continue, a knock on the door interrupts her.

"Who in the world...?" I turn and peer through the peephole. A little shock runs through me when I see my mother waiting impatiently on the other side of the door.

"It's my mother!" I whisper in a panicked voice to the rest of my room.

"She said she wasn't going to be here until tomorrow morning!" Leonard whispers back with a helpless shrug.

"What are we going to tell her?" I ask Penny quickly.

"Don't worry, I've got it covered," she says with a wink.

"Oh, wonderful." I roll my eyes and open the door.

My mother immediately envelops me in a warm hug. "Shelly! Thank the Lord you're all right!"

"The Lord had nothing to do with it, I can assure you," I mumble into her shoulder. When I manage to pry myself out of her grasp, I ask, "What are you doing here? I thought you had a flight for tomorrow morning."

"Well, an earlier flight became available, so I took it. I couldn't wait to get here and check on you." She gives me a final long hug and then takes in the rest of the room. "I hope I'm not putting you boys out by being here a little early."

"Oh, no, of course not, Mrs. Cooper," Leonard assures her. "You're welcome to sleep in my room, and I'll take the couch."

"That's very kind of you, especially considering I know Shelly won't—" My mother lets the sentence hang in the air as her eyes fall on Penny. "I'm sorry, have we met?"

"No, we haven't," Penny says, standing up and extending a hand. "I'm Penny."

"Very nice to meet you," Mother says with a thin-lipped smile. "How do you know the boys?"

There is a moment of silence, and I can almost see the gears turning in Penny's head. What sort of clever, convoluted lie will her mind come up with for this particular situation?

"We didn't really want to surprise you like this, but... well... Sheldon and I are dating."

Wait.

What?

Everyone in the room, myself included, turns and gives Penny a look of shock (and horror, in the case of Leonard and Howard). Thankfully, my mother is too caught up in her own shock to notice.

"Are you _sure_?" is all my mother can manage to ask.

"Oh, yes, for a few months now. I've been pushing Sheldon to tell you, but he said he wasn't sure how you'd react."

My mother looks like she isn't sure whether she should laugh or cry. A completely understandable reaction to which I can relate. My head is pounding fiercely and all I want to do is either kick this crazy woman out of my life or sleep until I'm dead.

Instead I say, "I figured this was a little much to drop on you last week, all things considered."

"It's a little much to drop on me NOW," my mother says. There is a part of me that is a little bothered by her reaction; why isn't she happy for me and my faux relationship? Isn't it a pleasant surprise that her genius, socially handicapped son has the ability to feel something for another human being? Apparently not, as she is eying the short hem of Penny's shirt suspiciously.

"You look tired, sweetie," Penny says to me as she places a hand at the small of my back. "Why don't you get some sleep? We'll take care of your mother."

The way she says it, I'm not sure if she means she'll take her out to dinner or shoot her and bury her in a nearby park at 3 am. She starts to push me toward my room, but Leonard intercepts me.

"I'll tuck him in," he says to Penny sweetly. She blinks, nods and lets go of me.

"Ok, seriously, what the _hell _is going on here?" Leonard whispers to me once we are alone.

"I have absolutely no idea," I respond with a sigh. I grab my pajamas and start to change, not really caring that Leonard is in the room.

"You have more of an idea than I do. How do you know Penny, really? Because she's definitely not your girlfriend."

"No, she isn't," I agree. I climb into bed and resist the urge to cover my head with my pillow.

"So?"

I fix Leonard with a weary gaze. "Leonard, I promise I will explain everything to you once my mother leaves, but right now, I am at the mercy of Penny's lie. Please just go along with it. It's just going to make things more confusing otherwise."

"_More_ confusing?" He throws his hands up in he air. "All right, all right, fine. But I don't know how I, let alone you, am supposed to pretend that some gorgeous blond is your girlfriend."

I raise an eyebrow. "Is it really that hard to believe?"

"Yeah, it kinda is."

I don't have the energy to care. "I'm going to sleep, Leonard. Please turn off the light on your way out."

I fall asleep three seconds after closing my eyes.

* * *

Some time later, I force my eyelids open and blink blearily at the clock. 6 am, really? How long was I asleep?

Zombie-like, I stumble into the bathroom and run a hot bath. I hate taking baths as a general rule, but my doctor forbid me to take showers until my head has healed somewhat. I groan when my headache comes back full force after ten minutes in the warm water.

Feeling significantly cleaner, I wander back across the hall and slip on clothes for the day. As I am buttoning my pants, a quiet knock cuts through the silence in my room and a sliver of light floods in from the opening door.

"Hey, Sheldon, it's me," Penny whispers into the dark.

"No one's allowed in my bedroom," I mumble through the haze in my aching head.

"I thought I'd change your bandages." She ignores my objection to her presence completely and sits down next to me on the bed.

"I can change my own bandages..."

"Come on, the nurse showed me how to do it before we left the hospital. Let me do it." Gingerly, she places her hands on my head and begins removing the wrapping.

"I slept for a very long time," I murmur. Her hands are cool against the warm skin hidden beneath the bandages. "And I can't say I feel all that better."

"It will probably take a couple of days before the disorientation goes away." She gives me a sympathetic look when she sees my head wound. "It still looks pretty yucky. Does your head hurt?"

"Endlessly."

"I'm really sorry, sweetie." She smooths my hair with a hand and smiles a little. "For everything."

"I know." The moment feels dream-like in the early morning darkness, and for a beat I find myself pitying her.

She begins wrapping a new bandage around my head. "Too tight?"

"No, it's fine," I say.

Slowly, memories from the night before come flooding back, and her new lie strikes me like a bolt of lightning. "What possessed you to tell my mother that you and I are dating?"

"I didn't think it was THAT far-fetched until you all looked at me like I was crazy. I don't know. I panicked, okay? But I think I have your mom believing it now. I told her we met at a physics conference."

"Oh, did we, now. Do you now have a PhD?"

"Are you crazy? Of course not! I was taking a physics class as an undergrad and had the opportunity to go, so I went. You were giving a lecture and I found it fascinating, so I approached you afterward. The rest is history!"

"That's ridiculous," I say, giving her a look.

"Well, your mother bought it, so who cares? We're in the clear for now."

"My mother is probably just being polite." I wince when she tucks in the end of the bandage. "I'm sure the whole thing will fall apart when she starts asking me questions."

"You're actually turning into a wonderful liar. First your friends, then the police... I've trained you well. It's kind of fun, isn't it? Making stuff up?"

"I don't like deceiving people."

Penny rolls her eyes. "It's not deception if they never find out the truth. Nobody gets hurt if it all stays a secret. So let's keep the truth a secret, ok? We just have to pretend for a couple of days."

"And after that?" I ask. "Where will you go? You can't stay here. I can't... I refuse to keep lying like this. And you can't threaten me with weaponry anymore."

"I know." She isn't looking at me. "I guess I'll just have to suck it up and go home. Hopefully my father doesn't kill me."

The bruises on her face are covered by makeup, but I can see the swelling, notice that she flinches a little every time she blinks. "Were you telling me the truth about your father?"

"Yes. I'm scared shitless of him, but I'm even more scared for my mother. I'll risk going home for her if it's what I need to do."

I know this is the point where I'm supposed to tell her that it's fine for her to stay, that she's welcome here, that she can't go home to her terrible life. But it isn't my responsibility to rescue her simply because she is lovely and leads a tragic life. This isn't a comic book or a fairy tale. She has upset the balance of my life in a real and tangible way, and I am afraid that the wounds won't heal until she is gone.

"Two days, and that's it," I say with finality.

Penny nods bravely, but I can see that I've dealt her a blow. I can't save you, I say silently to her, and I know she understands, but it doesn't do anything to ease the sting.

She rises to her feet. "Your mom is making breakfast. Join us if you want."

"I'm sorry," I murmur, but she has already shut the door behind her and the apology is accepted by silence.

* * *

_I should have been doing other things instead of writing this chapter today, but I've been seriously slacking on this story and I wanted to get it out there for you guys. I may not have the chance to work on this again until after the holidays, so just a heads-up. I hope you're enjoying it so far!_


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